The Other McCawber Girl
by Amanda Rohrssen
Chapter Two
Promises mean everything when you're little,
And the world is so big,
I just don't understand how
You can smile with all those tears in your eyes
When you tell me everything is wonderful now
~Everclear, "Wonderful"
“Ariana?” a soft voice asked as someone knelt beside her. “Baby, why are you crying?”
The golden-haired child mumbled something unintelligible and clutched her knees more tightly against her chest as she sniffled into them. The woman to whom the voice belonged rested a soothing hand upon Ariana’s upper arm and the girl raised her head slowly to look at her.
“Come on . . . what has you so upset?” she asked again gently with the hint of a soft, reassuring smile about her beak.
“Mommy?” answered the duckling, her gray eyes watering over with tears. “Do . . . do you think I’m ugly?”
The woman shifted her position to sit beside her daughter and gently pulled the child into her lap.
“Never . . .” she whispered. “How could you even ask something like that?”
“They said I was . . . and Daddy said-“
“Never mind about your father. Just leave it to me to set it right.” She leaned forward and nuzzled her daughter’s cheek, adding in a whisper, “Okay?”
Ariana laughed and wriggled a finger in her ear, smiling through the tear trails. “That tickles!”
“Not as much as this will!” She grinned over her daughter’s head and tickled her mercilessly.
“No!” protested the girl before she broke out in wild, uncontrollable laughter that rang as clearly and sweetly as a bell.
Abruptly the laughter was drowned out by a blaring horn. Ariana gasped shrilly and froze, terror restraining her feet to the pavement. All thought vanished from her mind, and
all she could do was stare into the headlights.
Suddenly, instinct struck her and she thrust an arm out in front of her.
“Omnis conspectus, omnis audivi, in noctu usque ad saxum commutatio dum caelum ardeo!” she shrieked.
Instantaneously the semi halted, though its tires were still spinning furiously. She lifted her hand slightly and the truck rose a few feet into the air.
Her entire body was trembling with fear and shock…and power.
She swallowed thickly, her heart thudding laboriously within her chest and her eyes wide as saucers. She continued to stare at the semi.
The door opened, and the driver fell to the ground. A few seconds later he was on his feet, and his frightened eyes were centered on Ariana. He took a few steps backward warily before turning and running full speed.
“Help! Help, a demon! A witch! Somebody help me!”
Blinking slowly, Ariana’s thoughts began to come back together. Gently she let the truck sink back to the street and watched the man disappear into the distance, waving his arms wildly.
All of a sudden she felt so lonely. She wanted nothing more than to be at home in the comfort of her father’s arms. It had suddenly become so cold out here.
Then she remembered that she couldn’t go back. She would never see home again. The force of the memory hit her like a slap in the face, and she could feel her heart lurch with pain.
Suddenly she could no longer repress what she had held inside for days. Tears spilled down her face in a flood of emotion. Strangled sobs emanated from her throat, echoing around her in a serenade of sorrow and hopelessness.
She had nothing and no one.
What was she going to do now?
Ariana pursed her beak bitterly as the final chorus of her class’ song faded away.
We took each day and made it shine
We wrote our names across the sky
We ride so fast, we ride so free
And I had you and you had me
Please remember, please remember
The last thing she wanted to do was remember her years at Webminster. She could not recall a single moment she’d been happy on the school’s campus, except…except when she’d danced in his arms.
She bit her lip, preventing the inevitable smile that accompanied the giddiness whenever she thought about him.
He’s not mine, she reminded herself harshly. He didn’t even want to dance with me - he had to.
She closed her eyes tightly, but the feel and smell of him refused to abandon her.
Still… she thought with a sigh, it was wonderful.
“…Miss Ariana McCawber!”
Huh? She inhaled sharply, suddenly remembering she was in the middle of her graduation ceremony.
Mr. Greytalon, the headmaster, was smiling down at her from the podium. A rare and rather frightening sight.
Whoops. He’s giving out diplomas already? I must’ve missed his entire speech!
“Miss McCawber?” Mr. Greytalon wasn’t smiling anymore.
Quickly Ariana stood up from the first chair in her class and walked up to the stage with the grace of a butterfly.
To most in the audience, the very sight of her golden blonde hair and large innocent eyes was appalling. Only one thing kept them from gossip. She was a McCawber.
As she approached Mr. Greytalon for her diploma she could feel her entire body begin to quake with nervousness. Her throat went completely dry down to the pit of her stomach, which had decided at that very moment to do flip-flops.
Please don’t make me talk, please don’t make me talk, she pleaded silently, shaking Mr. Greytalon’s hand and taking her diploma from him with the other.
“Ah, our star pupil,” he said slowly. “And what do you plan on doing after graduation?” He backed away from the microphone expectantly.
Ariana gulped and stared at it for a few moments before shuffling a couple of steps forward and murmuring, “I…I plan on working with my father.”
“Excellent!” declared Mr. Greytalon, resuming his place behind the podium. Before she could go by him, however, he leaned toward her, dropping his voice to a low growl that only she could hear. “I know what you are. Guard your secret well or I’ll see to it that you become Webminster’s best kept secret. I will not have the school’s name tarnished because of some-"
“Um, Mr. Greytalon? I hate to interrupt – I know you’re very proud of Miss McCawber here as we all are – but there are other students who need their diplomas,” winked the Transylvania superintendent as she patted him lightly on the forearm and flashed Ariana a grin that she returned only half-heartedly.
Mr. Greytalon nodded and allowed Ariana to walk past him and back to her seat, but his suspicious, glaring eyes followed her.
He cleared his throat, plastering a smile on his face again, and called the next name, but Ariana did not hear it. What had Mr. Greytalon meant? What secret? How could she tarnish the school’s name? She could barely speak in public!
Moloculo gathered his youngest daughter into his arms and held her tightly against him. Smiling softly, she closed her eyes and breathed in his cologne. She loved the
way her father smelled. It gave her a sense of comfort, of love, of home. Even if deep down she knew it was a sham, she loved him above everything else she had.
“I’m so proud of you, my daughter. Webminster valedictorian. I knew you had it in you.” He pushed her back slightly to look her in the eyes with a fondness his face seldom betrayed to her. “If only your mother could’ve been here – but don’t worry. The time for revenge is near. We’ll talk more about that at home.”
Ariana dropped her gaze and stared at the grass beneath her feet, but he didn’t seem to notice how unsettled he’d made her as he proudly led her toward a group of his high society friends as if she were a giant trophy proclaiming his greatness as a warlock and father.
For a moment she had simply been his daughter, and she had felt loved.
For a moment.
Sunlight intruded upon her slumber, casting away the comfort of darkness. Reluctantly she opened her gray eyes and yawned. As her eyes focused she suddenly grew very frightened and wondered where she was. Birds chirped merrily around her like a beautiful symphony, a sharp contrast to the cries of the bats in Transylvania as they fled the sun’s rays in favor of damp, formidable caves.
She sighed softly.
It was dawn.
Stiffly she arose and stretched her thin frame languidly, yawning again to the orange-purple sky.
She stifled the yawn with a gasp of surprise when she caught sight of what she had been sleeping under.
It was a billboard.
An hour later Ariana found herself among more normals than she had seen in all her life. She was filled with an anxious fascination as her eyes flitted from the buildings to the cars to the passersby. While the city itself wasn’t very different from those she had been to in Transylvania, it was less gloomy, seemed cleaner, and, of course, magic was absent. But it was the simple truth that normals inhabited it instead of monsters that really captivated her. It was an amazing sight.
So enraptured was she by her surroundings that it wasn’t until her gaze fell upon a single normal that reality jolted her out of her dreamlike state. The normal immediately averted his eyes when he realized she was looking back at him and continued down the sidewalk, careful to avoid her eyes as he passed.
A sudden feeling of dread shrouded Ariana and she turned around in all directions, looking from normal to normal with a slight panic. Did they know she was a sorceress? What would they do to her? Now it suddenly seemed as if everyone were looking at her the way that normal had been.
The thought of the truck driver from earlier struck her. Would they all run away from her as he had?
Her stomach sank even more as the weight of her worry increased. Where could she go if she couldn’t go home and couldn’t live among the normals? What then?
Still . . . why couldn’t she live among the normals? All she would have to do would be to hide her powers, right? Suddenly a feeling of excitement seized her thoughts. It didn’t look so hard; she could be a normal! Maybe here she would be accepted and liked, all she had to do was keep her past a secret.
A smile spread across her weary, downtrodden face. This was the opportunity she had been waiting for. This was her chance to start over, to build her own life, and to prove that she could be somebody. If she kept her abilities secret until the right time, maybe she could even get the normals to accept her kind.
Her excitement began to build more and more as Ariana wandered through the crowded sidewalks.
What should be the first thing that I do? she wondered. Her eyes searched the passing faces for an answer until she caught a glimpse of a sign next to the door of a brick building.
furnished one bedroom
$550/month
inquire within
Finding a place to live was out of the question, then, as she didn’t have any normal money with which to pay the rent.
I’m going to need a job, she concluded. How did one go about obtaining a job in a city of normals? She supposed she’d have to ask somebody, but the thought of doing that made her stomach turn in knots. The fear of how they might look at her or what they might think of her asking such a question pushed her away from the normals and against the brick wall where she remained and quietly watched them walk by. In the back of her mind she knew that she would get nowhere unless she went and asked somebody for help, but her apprehension chained her in place and silenced her voice. She was just too afraid of what might happen.
Then something fluttering in the breeze caught her eye.
A wave of gratefulness swept over her when she realized it was a sodden newspaper – well, at least parts of one.
Eagerly she lifted it up and said, “Jobs.”
Nothing happened.
She shifted her weight and looked around her nervously before trying again.
“Um . . . help wanted ads?”
The paper didn’t so much as rustle.
She frowned, immediately feeling embarrassed at the paper’s lack of movement. Back home the newspaper would automatically turn to whichever section the reader wanted. Maybe the rainwater staining this one had somehow damaged it.
Carefully turning each page so as not to tear them, Ariana at last came to a list of ads for jobs and began searching.